Hey everybody.  Thought I would share the list of classes that I am considering taking at this year’s Photoshop World in Boston. This set of classes is very different from the classes I took at PSW08 in Orlando. These are going to give me the opportunity to learn from a variety of instructors that I didn’t get to the last time we were at PSW (last year).  Steve and I will be splitting up most of the time and attending a completely different set of classes.  At the end of each day we will (or at least our intention) is to do short video reviews on each class and post them on the blog.  I believe that there are high-speed internet ports in our hotel rooms this year, so blogging will be much less painful. We will also try to do some videos from the show floor to give you guys a taste of what the Tech Expo is like. More to come.

Hi everyone.  A bit of photography news… PocketWizard has realeased two brand new products aimed at photographers who utilize TTL flash systems (i.e. Kaufman Kramer).  So what the heck is that?

TTL flash systems (Nikon calls it their ‘creative lighting system’) is a mechanism by which the camera can communicate through pulses of light with remote / off camera flash units.  The camera sends data via ‘pre-flashes’ of light, and can actually communicate exposure, meter readings, focal length, aperture, and even control lighting ratios of the off camera flash units (i’m sure there is lots more data there, but you get the idea).

The PROBLEM with this type of system has traditionally been that it works based of infrared pulses of light, not a radio signal.  This means that in order to utilize TTL in its current form, you need to maintain line of sight, which can be quite difficult.

Enter the new PocketWizards.  I’m not going into extreme techical detail on the new units, and I’m not going to recycle information thats already posted (http://www.pocketwizard.com/). Basically what these things do is take that TTL infrared pulse of light and convert it to a more robust radio signal.

I am very excited about these new units, and I can’t wait to get my hands on a pair.  They will help us in situations like low light receptions, bright outdoor engagment sessions, and they will free us so we can position a remote flash anywhere we need to, without having to worry about line of sight.

If you’d like to see a larger pic of the new units, head over to Chase Jarvis’ blog. He got to play around with a couple pre-production units, and wrote a great post on his experience.